Ooooo... Shiney...

Back in September or so, Playstation managed to catch up with X-box and began to reward players for, well, playing. The trophy system was released and although it's taken until now for every game that's released to include trophies, it changed the way myself and my friends approached gaming.

Before trophies were released, I never understood the competition that came with the X-box gamer score. But then our trophy levels started creeping up and suddenly we all cared. We started playing games to get the trophies. Which seems wrong somehow.

There's an argument that trophies introduce another level to games. It means there's something else to do after you've played through the game. Which is true. But the problem comes when the trophies become a distraction from the game itself. I've managed to stop this from being a problem with most games, but it happened once. And it made me sad. It was Resistance 2, and I had the trophies at the back of my mind the entire time. I didn't play the game to play the game. I played the game to get the trophies.

I blame my friends. They have more money than me and hence more games and so hence a higher trophy level. And it's that bloody level concept that makes it so much more competitive than the X-box gamer score. With the gamer score, it's just a number. A level is so much easier to compare. Especially when they actually give you a button which says 'Compare Trophies'.

And so I've had to train myself to play without the distraction of those damn shiney rewards. Yet the joy of seeing the trophy box flash up and that wonderful 'bling' sound is almost too much to resist. I still can't help but go and check on my progress.

So has this whole system destroyed gaming as we used to know it? I'd say so. But maybe not in a bad way. It's morphed and evolved as all good things should and introduced an element of healthy competition. As long as people don't start buying games like Super Star Dust, just to get the trophies, we should be ok.